MOSCOW, May 29, 2007 (RFE/RL) — An international congress of
journalists is convening in Moscow this week as concerns about media
freedom in Russia continue to grow.

In a separate session before the opening of the congress, participants
discussed a global campaign against the continuing murders of
journalists in Russia.

In chilling footage shown at the start of the session, a female
television journalist can be seen stumbling as she chases after a
soldier while gunshots are fired overhead.

Participants at the May 28 discussion were convinced of the need to
challenge the Russian government and its failure to adequately protect
journalists.

But with no government officials present, some speakers said the debate
was unlikely to change anything.

“Our journalists have no protection, and that tells you that journalism
is a very risky profession and that there is a great deal of unhappiness
in society,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State Duma deputy.
“There are so many differing facts, so much corruption, so much crime
committed in our country, that journalists who write about these things
then find themselves at enormous risk.”

No-Shows

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which holds its world
congress every three years, chose Moscow for its 2007 session at a
location just a few steps from the White House. But despite repeated
invitations, government officials, including President Vladimir Putin,
did not attend the event.

Dmitry Muratov, the editor in chief of “Novaya gazeta” newspaper —
where journalist Anna Politkovskaya worked before she was murdered in
October 2006 — was scathing in his doubts about what the preliminary
session dedicated to impunity could achieve.

“There’s been a lot of talk of ‘condemnation’ and ‘discussion’ and the
need to send a message to the authorities at this session,” Muratov
said. “That is, we’re talking about people’s deaths in a session that’s
not part of the congress itself. It’s optional — it’s the warm-up act,
as rock musicians would say. There’s no one here representing the
government, who are the ones who should be listening to the
presentations that are being given. Or maybe you think they’ll be able
to watch this later on Russian television?”

According to the IFJ, Russia is now the most dangerous place to be a
journalist, after Iraq. John Crowfoot, an analyst with the IFJ, has
produced a database that outlines the deaths and disappearances of 289
journalists in Russia since 1993.

The youngest to have died is a 19-year-old reporter killed last
September; the oldest, a retired journalist of 80, was stabbed to death
in his home a few years ago. Forty-seven of those killed were women.

The figures are staggering. But Crowfoot says the deaths are one of just
numerous indicators of how dangerous it is to be a journalist in Russia.

“There are attacks on journalists, there are attacks on editorial
offices, there is cyber-warfare against websites, there are all kinds of
different means of pressure,” he said. “In some parts of the country,
it’s said that you don’t need to actually commit much violence because
there are already so many levers — control over printing presses and so
on, which remain in the hands of the local authorities.”

Unsolved Cases

The IFJ used the May 28 forum to launching a commission to investigate
impunity in the killings of five journalists in Russia whose cases
remain unresolved. (The journalists are Valery Ivanov, Aleksei Sidorov,
Eduard Markevich, Dmitry Kholodov, and Vladimir Kirsanov.)

Miklos Haraszti, a representative for media freedom at the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the lack of government
action in defending journalists has created an atmosphere in which
violence can flourish.

“There is only one thing more intimidating for free speech than
harassment, physical attacks and murder of media workers — and that is
when governments tolerate harassment, attacks and murders,” Haraszti said.

The guest of honor at the preliminary session — and one with at least a
tentative link to the current government — was to have been former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. But minutes before the opening, he
telephoned to say he would not be attending.